What We Had
by ifununyabusiness
Summary: A dysfunctional family is wrecked even further due to the Equalist movement in Republic City, as Lee, a 14 year old waterbender, has to battle within himself the love he has for his twin sister and brother who are nonbenders, their radically changing ideas, and his overbearing, insane mother who will use any amount of terror tactics to get her way.


We were all out of balance; everything was up in the air, moving slowly like it was passing through water, or caught in the webs of time. It felt like my mind could not catch up with anything. The dinner table, what everybody was surrounding, stood on one of its legs and our plates, still full of steaming noodles, hovered above it slightly spinning like records, our forks twiddling above them like dancers. The cups rotated themselves in the air the water sloshing inside of it like a night tide. The moon streamed its river of light at us from our fire escape and our apartment filled with it. The light bulb above us flickered slowly casting inconstant shadows on my brother, my sister, my mother. Their bodies hovered our tiled kitchen floor, but only I was on the ground, realized by time, but I had no idea what was going on.

That's when I noticed my mother.

I knew there was a combustion that happened but the shouts went too fast and the teeth bore to a sharp note. So it took me awhile to understand what Mom was doing, why her hands were stretched out like daggers and why her pupils shook in the milk of her eyes. I turned to see Yoshimi and Arokka unrealized by time, their bodies stiff and their backs arched unnaturally, their spines twisted. But seemingly in sync as they always were. Their pouted mouths, like the red O's on their masks, pulsed and became more blood-like. I noticed their skin and how it turned to purple to blue…They looked…so cold …

That's when I realized what was happening.

She was freezing them from the inside out.

Disgust, anger, fear ran wild through me but I don't know from whom I felt it for. That's when I decided to end it. I took a deep breath, and whipped the water from those cups and slapped them down hard on to my mother's hands like handcuffs and I did the same to her feet. Her head moved quickly towards me. Her blue eyes were like a cave with sharp icicles in every crevice of it circling her pupil. With as much force as possible I slammed her against our chair. With that, everyone and everything fell with a crash. The table fell, splitting the wood. The plates cracked. The forks ended their dance. The moon was being covered by a cloud. The light bulb fell still. And Yoshimi and Arokka fell to the floor with a thud. Their skin slowly lost its blue tinge. Their normal deep tan tones came back in patches, returning to normal. But I knew our family never was or never would be. I stared at the twins crumbled on the floor their bodies fitting like Tui and La and back at my mother in the chair. Her bangs covering her wild, confused eyes, her hands still poised for attack. And I stood their staring at both of them breathing heavily from what I just did.

Then, my mother craned her head towards me. Her straight sleek black hair moved along with it.

"How did that feel Lee?" she hoarsely whispered to me. The ice handcuffs she had on were slowly changing back to water.

"How did it feel to betray me like that? To end the suffering of those traitors over there? When will you become a man, Lee?"

I turned my head to see Yoshimi and Arokka their breaths still like cold mists. I felt a rage in me. I hated them and loved them twice over. I couldn't stand it. I ran towards our door grabbed my coat and left that apartment. Just in the instance when I was about to slam it, I heard her whisper.

"You know you should have let them freeze."

And I'll never forgive myself for slightly thinking that maybe I should have.

* * *

The roof. When I raced down the hall and up the stairways, feeling her echoes behind me, her breath at my neck, it was the only place that I could think of that I could see the moon and sea. In school, I read once that an evil Fire Nation general tried to take the moon away from the Water Tribe so they could lose their abilities and instead made the whole world out of balance. I was so obsessed with it, that every night I would check if it was there. I saw it when I was at home but I needed to see it again. I needed to know that if it could have gone away now and maybe that was why my whole world was out of balance.

But when I stepped onto that gravel of the roof that day, the moon shone as brightly as ever right over Avatar Aang's statue and Yue Bay. The sky was a dark night blue and the city's skyline was lit up by lights of all kind. There was still balance in the world but something in all of Republic City changed. For the first time, I was met with complete and utter silence. No alley way hushed conversation, no balcony gossip. All that could be heard was the night wind carrying posters, flapping in the wind. I was alone and vulnerable. Someone could take me right now but I didn't want to leave. I needed a sign, a message from something. As I thought that, the wind carried a poster by my feet and on it was Him. Amon. The one who promises equality, a revolution, a change. He's the one who made these streets silent, instilled people with fear, made this city a battleground and made me fight an internal fight for so long. I felt something in me break and I could not stand anymore. My knees dropped hard on the floor and bits of rock embedded into my palms. I wanted to cry but I couldn't. I did not know what to do…

Right then, I felt a light touch on my neck.

I tried to turn around to see who it was, but my body felt weaker and I began to feel so sleepy. My body sank into the gravel.

_Remember…_

I heard a lady whisper. Her voice sounded otherworldly. But I felt sleepy and my eyelids were shutting. The world was slipping away from me. All I saw was a glow of white fabric come in front of me, rippling like a river and I was gone.


End file.
